How did we get here, ECHL? Why are you going on strike, and more importantly, why should we worry about that?
Now I am a hockey fanatic, a level 5 hockey fan on the seven levels of hockey fans, dare I say a sick one sometimes. I follow the AHL and host an AHL podcast; my team, the Hershey Bears, is affiliated with the South Carolina Stingrays. I know your league is considered the AA of professional hockey, but you treat your players as such and it comes back to bite you.
Many players in the ECHL have no connections to their NHL teams; Heck, some aren’t even signed to an AHL team. Their ECHL teams sign them for very low wages; players have taken part-time jobs or different careers to make ends meet. Still, you want to brag about the fact that ticket prices in the ECHL are only the median of $21, which isn’t bad in this economy, just not the time for it.
The current CBA expired in July, and both parties, the PHPA and you, acted in good faith to continue in the hope that a deal could be reached. However, negotiations have not gone well and now public jabs, public proposals and counter-offers are being released via social media. In other words, things get ugly quickly, just like a divorce.
You talk about mandatory days off during holidays and eliminating three games in three days, which should happen, but we don’t get many details. I’ve heard even fewer games in general, like going to 68, but those are more rumors than anything.
Things like the amount of travel between back-to-back games, mileage, and the fact that players will get an increase in their per diem. All of these things sound great to people who know about them, like players, media, or fan media. But for the average fan, they don’t care about the salary cap being raised or the ECHL covering 100 player expenses.
Your league wants to have 32 teams, but during these negotiations you stand there as the Monopoly man with empty pockets. IT was expanding too quickly, and this strike came at the worst possible time; this whole CBA issue could have been resolved on both sides.
And now a motion to strike has been voted on and presented to you as a jury summons; your competition may end on December 26 by the time this article is published.
I can tell you that your fans in the blue-collar towns and community-driven areas don’t care about collective bargaining agreements. The two lockouts of your NHL brethren should be proof of that, and it took years for the goodwill to return. You don’t have the luxury of national TV deals in the US and Canada, you use internet streaming for road broadcasts, and some of your teams don’t send broadcasters for road games.
Some of your teams don’t even average 3,000 fans per year; your competition is in danger of falling apart. Fans will spend their time and money elsewhere if this strike lasts long. MLB went through the same things in 1994; some teams haven’t forgiven MLB. Ask any Expos fan if they are still there.
You have a nuclear button in front of you, but you want to implement a salary cap that will increase by 27% in the coming years. How is an average ECHL fan supposed to figure that out?
This whole CBA negotiation is a messy divorce gone too far, and yet we as fans are the kids being sent to grandmas while mom and dad try to save their marriage. If a strike happens, the fans will be the most affected, and they won’t come back right away.
And when the dust settles on this, I hope that you as a union can learn from this, or at least look in the mirror and realize that the person staring back at you is the cause and solution to your problems.
